I am interested in Competition BBQ, but not yet ready to venture out alone would like to find a veteran team to see what its like and learn the ropes . I have been cooking for a while my dad was in the meat biz and have had four different smokers in my life. I have taken RedNecks class. Is there any teams that would mentor a newbie ?

If you were closer you could hang with my wife and I. We have helped a few cooks locally while getting their feet wet it helps to see it happen first hand for sure. We visited teams for over a year while I was building our cooker I even ran boxes and my wife judged.

I highly recommend you volunteer to be a judge at some competitions. This will show you what is being turned in and will give you an idea of what you need to adjust in your cooking if any. Once this is done, it is visit a couple of cookoffs on a Friday evening and see if you can get some questions answered by teams. Then its time to jump right in and get r done.